Winter Olympics starts in Pyeongchang

The 2018 Winter Olympics Games have officially commenced at Pyeongchang in South Korea. This is the 23rd edition of the Olympic Winter Games.

The 2018 Winter Olympics Games are officially known as the XXIII Olympic Winter Games or PyeongChang 2018.

PyeongChang was selected as the host country in July 2011 during he 123rd IOC Session in Durban, South Africa.

It marks the first time that South Korea has hosted the Winter Olympics, and the second Olympics held in the country, the first being the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.

These Games will be held from 9-25 February 2018 featuring 102 events in 15 sports.

A total of 2,952 athletes from 92 National Olympic Committees are slated to compete, including the debut of countries like Ecuador, Kosovo, Malaysia, Nigeria and Singapore.

About Winter Olympics

The Olympic Winter Games is a major international sporting event held once every four years, for sports practised on snow and ice.

The first Winter Olympics, the 1924 Winter Olympics, was held in Chamonix, France.

Olympic games were inspired by the ancient Olympic Games, which were held in Olympia, Greece, from the 8th century BC to the 4th century AD.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was founded in 1894 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin leading to the first modern Games in Athens in 1896.

The IOC is the governing body of the Olympic Movement.

The Games were held every four years from 1924 to 1936, interrupted in 1940 and 1944 by World War II, and resumed in 1948.

Until 1992 the winter and Summer Olympic Games were held in the same years. But in 1986 a decision was taken by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to place the Summer and Winter Games on separate four-year cycles in alternating even-numbered years.

The original five sports in the event were bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, Nordic skiing (consisting of the disciplines military patrol, cross-country skiing, Nordic combined, and ski jumping), and skating (consisting of the disciplines figure skating and speed skating).

Some of the sports disciplines added were Alpine skiing, luge, short track speed skating, freestyle skiing, skeleton, and snowboarding, which have earned a permanent spot on the Olympic programme.

The Winter Olympics has been hosted on three continents by eleven different countries.

The IOC has selected Pyeongchang, South Korea, to host the 2018 Winter Olympics and Beijing, China, to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.